The Race : The Complete True Story of How America Beat Russia to the Moon

by James Schefter

Release Date: 05 July, 2000

Edition: Paperback

Price:

More Info

Promising start that only fills in the odd crack!

The Race is written by James Schefter who (after reading the introduction) was one of the frontline reporters of NASA's manned spaceflight program from the mid 1960's. Given that information I assumed that I would learn a lot about what happened behind the scenes in Gemini-Apollo era, rather than the history text book story. And it certainly starts off that way. A great deal of detail goes into the pre-NASA days, the rise of Werner Von Braun, Bob Gilruth and the soviet Chief Designer. A few interesting stories such as the time Neil Armstrong slept in for the first X-15 flight and the tension between Chris Kraft and Scott Carpenter fill in some of the gaps, but I'm left feeling that given the author, a lot more could have been said. This book isn't in the same league as Andrew Chaikin's 'A Man on the Moon'. Only for the dedicated space cadet!

A Good, Easy Read

Simply put, the book is a good, easy read about the history of the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo program. However, Schefter speaks more in detail about the rocket program (with von Braun), the Mercury and Gemini flights than he does about the Apollo program. The book is approximately 300 pages and only around page 210 does he start to discuss the Apollo tests and flights. In that respect, I'm disappointed that there wasn't more in-depth information about Apollo. I felt that he quickly skimmed over Apollo 8 - 10 and quickly concluded with Apollo 11. Nevertheless, the book is full of good information and is definitely worth a read. The book is as good as the other books on space that I've read (For All Mankind; Flight; Andrew Chaikin's book). Recommended.